Beauty and the Geek?

What would you do if you got an email from the show Beauty and the Geek asking you to make a video to apply to the show? I'm somewhat torn.

Nature Vs. Nurture

Image via WikipediaEveryone is familiar with the great debate over how we are shaped as persons. Some believe that most of who we are is shaped by our experiences and actions - if you grow up in an aggressive environment you grow up to be aggressive. At the same time there is a large contingent of people who believe who we are is built into us, programmed into our genes. Take for example the studies of identical twins separated at birth who end up in the same careers and have the same exact food preferences.

The way I always felt was that each person was born with many inherent characteristics (aggressive or tame, smart or stupid, honest or duplicitous) but that events could shape the extent to which these natures would be expressed. I imagine a fast moving river as the person, it has a natural tendency to go in a certain direction but can be redirected for a time by obstacles (events in life) which can alter the course of the river. I suppose the whole debate boils down to how fast you think the river is moving. The course of a slow meandering river would be much easier to shape - ergo people aren't destined to be good or evil, the events of their life determine this.

Recent Studies have thrown a monkey wrench in all of this it seems. They've shown that gene expression within the brain can be effected by social cues in life. In birds, hearing a new song by a male from their species changed what parts of their DNA asserted itself. In bees, the presence of many foraging bees prevented the foraging gene from being expressed in young bees. Take away the adult foragers and suddenly some of the young bees become foragers - genetically!

Is there even a genetic person anymore? Do we all have the potential to be many different types of people, only waiting for events to dictate to us which one we should be? I feel cut adrift now, this takes away my neat little metaphor for human development.

And finally, does this throw into question commonly held notions about evolution? According to the theory lifting weights everyday and getting huge muscles won't imply that your kids will grow up to be muscle men. But if events in life effect gene expression, is it possible that changes of this kind could be inherited? Anyone out there know enough about biology to answer this one? Best response in the comments gets a prize. Not really.

I wake up in the dimness of my cabin and listen to the crash of the ocean outside. My watch tells me its 8am, but it feels like I slept till 12. I must be getting used to the lack of electricity, there’s really no reason to stay up when you can’t see anything. Walking out into the little porch I feel a welcome breeze after the stagnant air inside the cabin. I look out on what is easily the most beautiful view I’ve ever woken up to. After about 10 meters of jungle the ground drops away to the beach below, and off in the distance is Isla Burica – vast and untamed.


The view is so nice, in fact, I decide to climb into the ideally placed hammock on the porch and enjoy it some more. After wiggling around for a minute I finally achieve the optimal position and sigh deeply as I put my hands behind my head, ready to do some serious relaxing. BAM! Something huge is attached to my face, right over my left eye. It’s heavy and hard, yet unpleasantly sticky at the same time – I can feel some of its legs caught in my hair. In a single fluid move that could only be described as incredibly manly; I leap out of the hammock, tear whatever it is off of my face, and let out a childish shriek that wakes Matt up. I stand on the jungle floor and try to calm myself. With adrenaline enhanced vision I see the ground seething; and I realize it’s covered with thousands of hermit crabs. What the hell did I get myself into? I’m deep deep in the jungle, hours away from anything resembling life as I know it. Bugs grow BIG here, and they apparently don’t like me. Once I assure Matt that I am not in fact dead we make our way into the jungle to the kitchen, where our host cooks us pancakes. I feel better.

Lessons from the Jungle

Hello again friends. I have returned from Panama without too much damage, and much to tell. What follows in this and some other posts are excerpts from my trip, please forgive the fact that I'm not a writer.


Just off of Dog Island in San Blas there is an old sunken ship. The coral has grown over it to the point where it looks like a bizarre alien craft, with large organic structures whose functions remain a mystery. Was that a radar dish or two ton piece of living rock? Diving down I notice a wide entrance to a chute that leads straight back up to the surface. The chute ends a few inches below the surface, so this new area I am in is effectively cut off from the outside. I float for a while, listening to the deafening crackle of the coral and watching fish dart in and out of the ship below. The isolation makes me feel like a disembodied observer watching a world untouched by mankind. At the same time the huge presence of the ship asserts itself, making me aware that this whole little world is shaped by the man-made monstrosity surrounding me. The cognitive dissonance of these two thoughts is unsettling, and after a time I dive back down to make my escape.